E. Martin

Bio: E. Martin is an academic researcher from University of California, Berkeley. The author has contributed to research in topics: Wavelet transform & Gait (human). The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 49 citations.

Novel method for stride length estimation with body area network accelerometers

Abstract: Gait analysis using wireless accelerometers deployed as body area networks can provide valuable information for multiple health-related applications. Within this field, stride length estimation represents a difficult task. In this paper we present a novel method to estimate stride length through the application of the wavelet transform to the signal obtained from a wireless accelerometer on the waist. We also introduce a novel metric to determine the level of the wavelet transform detail coefficients from which the step frequency can be directly extracted. Additionally, we show the correlation between the energy of the wavelet transform approximation coefficients and the speed of the gait.

Toward Pervasive Gait Analysis With Wearable Sensors: A Systematic Review

Abstract: After decades of evolution, measuring instruments for quantitative gait analysis have become an important clinical tool for assessing pathologies manifested by gait abnormalities. However, such instruments tend to be expensive and require expert operation and maintenance besides their high cost, thus limiting them to only a small number of specialized centers. Consequently, gait analysis in most clinics today still relies on observation-based assessment. Recent advances in wearable sensors, especially inertial body sensors, have opened up a promising future for gait analysis. Not only can these sensors be more easily adopted in clinical diagnosis and treatment procedures than their current counterparts, but they can also monitor gait continuously outside clinics – hence providing seamless patient analysis from clinics to free-living environments. The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic review of current techniques for quantitative gait analysis and to propose key metrics for evaluating both existing and emerging methods for qualifying the gait features extracted from wearable sensors. It aims to highlight key advances in this rapidly evolving research field and outline potential future directions for both research and clinical applications.

An Indoor Position-Estimation Algorithm Using Smartphone IMU Sensor Data

Abstract: Position-estimation systems for indoor localization play an important role in everyday life. The global positioning system (GPS) is a popular positioning system, which is mainly efficient for outdoor environments. In indoor scenarios, GPS signal reception is weak. Therefore, achieving good position estimation accuracy is a challenge. To overcome this challenge, it is necessary to utilize other position-estimation systems for indoor localization. However, other existing indoor localization systems, especially based on inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensor data, still face challenges such as accumulated errors from sensors and external magnetic field effects. This paper proposes a position-estimation algorithm that uses the combined features of the accelerometer, magnetometer, and gyroscope data from an IMU sensor for position estimation. In this paper, we first estimate the pitch and roll values based on a fusion of accelerometer and gyroscope sensor values. The estimated pitch values are used for step detection. The step lengths are estimated by using the pitching amplitude. The heading of the pedestrian is estimated by the fusion of magnetometer and gyroscope sensor values. Finally, the position is estimated based on the step length and heading information. The proposed pitch-based step detection algorithm achieves 2.5% error as compared with acceleration-based step detection approaches. The heading estimation proposed in this paper achieves a mean heading error of 4.72° as compared with the azimuth- and magnetometer-based approaches. The experimental results show that the proposed position-estimation algorithm achieves a high position accuracy that significantly outperforms that of conventional estimation methods used for validation in this paper.

Novel algorithm for a smartphone-based 6-minute walk test application: algorithm, application development, and evaluation

Abstract: The 6-minute walk test (6MWT: the maximum distance walked in 6 minutes) is used by rehabilitation professionals as a measure of exercise capacity. Today’s smartphones contain hardware that can be used for wearable sensor applications and mobile data analysis. A smartphone application can run the 6MWT and provide typically unavailable biomechanical information about how the person moves during the test. A new algorithm for a calibration-free 6MWT smartphone application was developed that uses the test’s inherent conditions and smartphone accelerometer-gyroscope data to report the total distance walked, step timing, gait symmetry, and walking changes over time. This information is not available with a standard 6MWT and could help with clinical decision-making. The 6MWT application was evaluated with 15 able-bodied participants. A BlackBerry Z10 smartphone was worn on a belt at the mid lower back. Audio from the phone instructed the person to start and stop walking. Digital video was independently recorded during the trial as a gold-standard comparator. The average difference between smartphone and gold standard foot strike timing was 0.014 ± 0.015 s. The total distance calculated by the application was within 1 m of the measured distance for all but one participant, which was more accurate than other smartphone-based studies. These results demonstrated that clinically relevant 6MWT results can be achieved with typical smartphone hardware and a novel algorithm.

Pedestrian Dead-Reckoning Indoor Localization Based on OS-ELM

Abstract: Smartphone-based pedestrian dead-reckoning (PDR) has become promising in indoor localization since it locates users with a smartphone only. However, existing PDR approaches are still facing the problem of accumulated localization errors due to low-cost noisy sensors and complicated human movements. This paper presents a novel PDR indoor localization algorithm combined with online sequential extreme learning machine (OS-ELM). By analyzing the process of PDR localization, this paper first formulates the process of PDR localization as an approximation function, and then, a sliding-window-based scheme is designed to preprocess the obtained inertial sensor data and thus to generate the feature dataset. At last, the OS-ELM-based PDR algorithm is proposed to address the localization problem of pedestrians. Due to the fact of universal approximation capability and extreme learning speed within OS-ELM, our algorithm can adapt to localization environment dynamically and reduce the localization errors to a low scale. In addition, by taking the movement habits of pedestrian into the process of extreme learning, our algorithm can predict the position of pedestrian regardless of holding postures. To evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm, this paper implements OS-ELM-based PDR on a real android-based smartphone and compares it with the state-of-the-art approaches. Extensive experiment results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in various different postures and the practicability in indoor localization.

A Robust Step Detection and Stride Length Estimation for Pedestrian Dead Reckoning Using a Smartphone

Abstract: As an infrastructure-free positioning and navigation method, pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) is still a research hotspot in the field of indoor localization. Step detection (SD) and stride length estimation (SLE) are two key components of PDR, and it is a challenging problem to apply SD and SLE to different walking patterns. Focusing on this problem, this paper proposes a robust SD and SLE method based on recognizing three walking patterns (i.e., Normal Walk, March in Place, and Quick Walk) using a smartphone. First, we propose a dynamic time warping–based peak prediction with zero-crossing detection to improve the SD accuracy. In particular, the proposed SD can accurately identify the starting and ending points of each step in the three walking patterns. Second, according to the extracted features of each step, a random forest algorithm with classification proofreading is used to recognize the three walking patterns. Finally, an improved SLE model is proposed for the different walking patterns to achieve a higher SLE accuracy. The experimental results show that, on average, the SD accuracy is about 97.9%, the recognition accuracy is about 98.4%, and the relative error of the estimated walking distance is about 3.0%, which outperforms those of the existing commonly used SD and SLE methods.